Cardinals Call Up Jerome Williams, Option Mike Mayers to Memphis, Place Jordan Walden on 60-Day DL
After Mike Mayers struggled in his first start and taxed the bullpen, the Cardinals took measures to make sure that they’ll have another pitcher to cover some innings.
The St. Louis Cardinals made the second adjustment to their pitching staff in as many days on Monday, purchasing the contract of veteran righthander Jerome Williams from Triple-A Memphis and optioning starter Mike Mayers to Memphis. Mayers, a 24-year-old righthander, gave up nine earned runs over 1 1/3 innings as he made his MLB debut in a spot start on Sunday night. To make room for Williams on the 40-man roster, reliever Jordan Walden was transferred to the 60-day disabled list.
Williams, who has a 4.57 ERA in 225 career major-league games (149 starts), is expected to provide long relief out of the Cardinals’ bullpen. It will be much needed after Tyler Lyons threw 4 2/3 innings on Friday, Seth Maness threw 3 2/3 on Sunday, and Matt Bowman threw 3 1/3 in total over the course of the weekend. In 12 relief appearances for the Philadelphia Phillies last season, Williams had a 3.52 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and .268 opponent batting average in 15 1/3 innings.
As it turns out, Williams may have been a better option to start on Sunday night than Mayers was, even though he would have been on short rest, as he had thrown a reasonable 92 pitches on Wednesday night.
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Nevertheless, though, he’ll now be around to provide long relief, at least until the Cardinals get their full complement of position players back from the DL, or until
Miguel Socolovich(who was optioned to make room for Mayers on Sunday) is eligible to return in 10 days. Williams will have to pass through waivers and be outrighted to the minors if the Cardinals want to send him down, though, so there’s a solid possibility that they’ll find a way to keep him around until rosters expand on September 1.
Walden, who hasn’t pitched in a regular season game since April 29 of last year, sure seems to have packed in his hopes of returning to the majors again. Walden, who has been rehabbing a lat strain at home in Dallas all season after going on the DL right before the start of the regular season, will not visit St. Louis this month to get checked out by the Cardinals’ medical staff. As MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch relayed on Sunday evening, “Walden, who has been out since Spring Training with a right shoulder strain, instead told the club he did not feel like he was far enough along in his rehab to make a follow-up visit necessary.”
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Walden pitched four times during a rehab assignment that lasted from July 23-31 of last year, then again in eight spring training games, not allowing an earned run in a single one of those appearances. Over the past 15 months, he hasn’t had an injury that’s been serious enough to necessitate surgery, but evidently the discomfort–first in his shoulder, now in his lat muscle–has been significant enough to hamper his conditioning and render him unavailable more often than not.